London Stock Exchange halts trading over technical glitch

The London Stock Exchange was forced to halt trading minutes after the market
opened on Friday morning citing technical issues.

"There is a pause in order driven securities trading, we are investigating problems in Sets and Sets QX," said a spokeswoman for the LSE.

London Stock Exchange Group

She added that she was not able to say when the problem may be resolved.

LSE, which this month agreed to buy Toronto Stock Exchange owner TMX Group, moved its main market to the MillenniumIT system on February 14 after three months of delays.

Turquoise, the first of the exchange’s markets to make the change, had glitches on its first day of trading in October and the next day was forced to postpone the market open.

On Tuesday, Borsa Italiana, a unit of LSE, suspended trading for six-and-a-half hours because of a technical glitch a day after a day after the country's benchmark FTSE MIB Index plunged amid concern about unrest in Libya.

Consob, Italy’s securities market watchdog, wrote to Borsa Italiana and LSE seeking clarification on the problems that halted trading and asking the exchanges to strengthen management and technology to ensure that the disruption isn’t repeated.

Dealers were on Friday worried that the LSE's problem might not be fixed before the release of fourth-quarter UK gross domestic product figures at 9.30am.

"It's a little bit frustrating – we've had reasonable moves in these markets in the last few days and no one can trade," Mark Priest, senior equities trader at ETX Capital said.